


FML

by mylittlecthulhu (marineko)



Category: Arashi (Band), Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Gen, Jun-Centric, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-25
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-23 00:44:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marineko/pseuds/mylittlecthulhu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s excited. Anyone would be, if they were sixteen and on a boat to Hawaii with their friends, with no parental supervision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	FML

**Author's Note:**

  * For [desirer91](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=desirer91).



> Written for the Arashi Earthquake & Tsunami Relief Fund.

**One.**

He’s excited. Anyone would be, if they were sixteen and on a boat to Hawaii with their friends, with no parental supervision. Of course, he’s also so nerve-wrecked that he’s puked god knows how many times, but he’s subtle enough about it that no one notices. Once they’re on the island, and the cameras stop rolling, he turns to his new band mates –

Only to find that Ohno has retired to his room, and he doesn’t know where Sho is. Before him are Aiba and Nino, and Jun is relieved, because he knows them best out of the four, and he grins at them. “Want to go exploring the area together?”

Nino looks at Aiba. Aiba looks at Nino. Both of them are wearing identical expressions. Something in Jun’s stomach flips; he’s seen that look on them before. Except before this it’s never worrying, because before this that look is always meant for Toma.

“Did you hear anything, Aiba-chan?” Nino asks.

“Hmm? Nope. Nothing. Hey, I heard there’s a game arcade in the hotel – want to check it out?”

The two of them passes by Jun, as if he isn’t there. He stares after them, realizing what debuting without Toma means. He’s the youngest now.

They’re going to make his life hell.

 **Two.**

“Jun’s in love with Sho,” Nino states, as he lets himself fall, gracelessly, onto the old couch. Next to him, Aiba immediately leans closer, and sniggers.

Jun pretends not to hear. At any other time, he’d probably laugh along good naturedly, like it’s a joke. But Sho had just pulled him aside, wanting to have a “proper talk”, in which Sho told him off for giving “half-assed confessions” on camera. He’s so embarrassed, he had wished that he could disappear, but then there would be only four of them and that would not be good. So he’s trying to forget that the whole thing ever happened, except that Aiba is laughing harder, and repeating Nino’s words, and because he’s still stinging from Aiba’s rejection to his overtures of friendship before his last birthday, he ends up saying, loudly and clearly, “you know I didn’t mean it. I’m not in love with Sho-kun.”

“Yes, you are,” Aiba manages to say in between laughter.

Bristling, Jun bites out, “am not.” He doesn’t care how childish he sounds like, he decides. After all, it had been the two older ones that had started it.

Giggling now, and burying his face in Nino’s shirt, Aiba says, “are too!” Nino smiles at him indulgently, throws Jun a pitying,  _you know you’re not gonna win this one_  look, and takes out his game.

He isn’t going to admit defeat, Jun thinks, determined. “Am not.”

They end up going back and forth more times than Jun likes to remember, until his patience wears off, and he yells out, “get it into your head, already. I am  _NOT_  in love with Sho-kun!” 

Of course, it has to happen at the exact moment Sho and Ohno enters the room.

Aiba and Nino burst into laughter. Sho blinks at him and said, okay, but he didn’t have to shout. Ohno takes a seat next to Jun like nothing happened.

Jun closes the gap between him and the eldest for comfort, but wishes he could sink deeper into the cushions instead. “I hate you,” he mutters to Aiba and Nino, but they’re too busy laughing to hear him.

 **Three.**

He supposes that after so many years, he should be used to Aiba and Nino by now. And he is. The problem is, sometimes he forgets. There is still that part of him, he supposes – the young boy who just wants to be acknowledged and included in with his older brothers. Plus, he and Aiba and Nino are supposed to be a trio, he thinks. They used to be in the same group, after all. But Aiba and Nino always wander off by themselves, talking in soft whispers with their heads bent together, not letting anyone else in to their duo. Jun turns to Ohno and Sho, but they seem even farther removed to him sometimes, off in their own worlds.

He frowns as he thinks this, but he has more pressing issues at hand. Like the fact that he has trouble choosing an outfit, and he could see Aiba and Nino out of the corner of his eyes, standing close and whispering, like they always do. 

Jun steps out towards them, and watches as they separate.

“Hey, can you guys help me?”

Neither Aiba nor Nino could quite turn to look at him. It’s interesting, he notes, that Aiba’s shoulders are shaking just a little bit, with mirth, and Nino is biting his lips, and looks somewhat guilty.

They speak to him, but aren’t helpful at all.

He trudges back to finding something to wear, but his band mates’ reaction is still troubling him. He ends up spending the rest of his time being distracted by thoughts as to what Aiba and Nino could be talking about, and couldn’t concentrate on anything at all. Finally he decides to cheat, knowing that he’ll never hear the end of it from those two, but he just doesn’t care anymore. 

Much later, when the whole thing is over and it turns out that Sho had picked the losing outfit, he sighs in relief. Like the rest, he watches in amusement as Sho has his pictures taken, but when everyone else goes to wait at their greenroom, Jun stays behind with Sho.

“Thank you,” he says, because there isn’t any doubt in his mind that Sho had done it for him.

“Ah, it’s okay,” Sho replies, looking a little embarrassed. “Nino suggested it, actually. Because he saw how upset you were the last time.”

“Nino did?” Jun doesn’t know if he should believe Sho.

Sho shrugs, mutters something about wishing it’s his idea, but Jun doesn’t really listen because he’s wondering if perhaps Nino sees through him better than he thinks.

Then they arrive at their greenroom together, and the first thing Nino says is that Sho and Jun should cut down on their make out time so that the others don’t have to wait, and Sho’s looking at him blankly and both Ohno is laughing at their expressions and Aiba chimes in that Jun’s  _falling in love with Sho again_  and he heats up and snaps, “ _AM NOT_ ”, which only makes Aiba giggle louder and shuts him up to hear himself, and he wonders.

What is it about those two that makes him feel like such a kid?

 **Four.**

They have half an hour before they have to get ready for the show and both Sho and Jun are in the greenroom, talking. Jun’s leaning back against the couch, and Sho is perched on his chair, drawn closer to where Jun is.

“When’s the last time you brought a girl home?” Sho asks.

“I don’t know,” Jun answers, forehead creasing as he tries to remember. “Two… maybe three… years ago? Why?”

Sho shakes his head. “My mom asked me about it the other day. She’s wondering why I haven’t dated in awhile.” He makes a face. “So I haven’t got any girlfriends that I’m serious enough about to introduce to the family. That doesn’t mean that there haven’t been  _girls_. Of course, it’s not like I can say that to my mom.”

“Come to think about it, my aunt asked me something similar last week,” Jun muses. His mother doesn’t bother him with things like that, but his extended family does tend to get into his business any time they could. 

“Yeah?” Sho leans closer, lowers his voice. “Did anyone ever ask you if you were, you know,  _gay_ , before?”

Jun chokes on nothing. Sho pats his back worriedly. “Actually,” Jun says, smoothing out his voice. “My aunt did ask me if I was – she’s all supportive about it, saying that if I’ve got a boyfriend I should bring him home sometime.”

Sho nods eagerly. “It’s weird, isn’t it? My mom said something like that, too! Well, and she said that she’d kill me if Shu ends up being like me, but I think that’s a joke.” He pauses. “I hope. Anyway, don’t you think that it’s weird, this line of thought they’re having?”

“What line of thought?” Aiba asks. He’d just come in and is hanging his coat up.

“Our families think that we’re gay just because we haven’t brought girls home in awhile,” Sho explains.

Jun waits for Aiba to say that their families are weird, or for Aiba to chime in that his family does the same – anything, really, except what actually happened. Aiba pauses as the information sinks in, and his eyes brighten and he says, “really? That’s awesome!” and Jun doesn’t know what’s so awesome about weird families when Aiba starts calling out for Nino that the gamer walks in with a disgruntled expression, pulling Ohno in with him, and Aiba says, “guess what? Sho and Jun have confessed that they’re gay!”

Sho facepalms at this; he doesn’t know how his sentence could be translated into whatever nonsense that had just come out of Aiba’s mouth. Jun gets flustered and tries to explain what actually happened over and over but he gets it wrong or tells it wrong, until Nino walks up to him and pats him on the arm.

“Don’t worry,” Nino says gravely. “We’ll support the both of you no matter what.”

He thinks that he sees an evil twinkle in Nino’s eyes, but he isn’t sure. When he looks at Ohno, their leader nods encouragingly and smiles. It’s kind of creepy, that smile.

He hates, hates,  _hates_  being in Arashi, he decides. 

 **Five**.

Jun would be the first to admit that they have strange, if interesting, dynamics. He likes Sho a lot, and admires the newscaster, but he would never understand how stupid Sho could get when he spends too much time with Nino or Aiba. Although, he supposes, he gets pretty stupid with them, too. Sometimes he laughs along. Sometimes he’d sit next to Ohno, glad for one person who seems beyond whatever inanity the other three gets in, although of course there are times when even Ohno freaks him out a little. He’s gotten used to it by now.

Lately, though, Nino has been stranger than usual. He had been throwing Sho and Jun together more times than Jun could count. He had also continued to perpetuate the story that Jun and Sho must be secretly longing for each other, which amuses and confuses Jun at the same time. Just a few days before, during a photo shoot, Nino had made sure that Jun was standing close to Sho in every single group picture.

He doesn’t understand at first.

Then there’s that day when he’s watching their own show on television and he sees Sho’s hand casually placed on Aiba’s back. That’s normal enough; Sho’s almost always touching Aiba. Sometimes Aiba reciprocates, and sometimes Aiba shifts away, but Sho is constant. What Jun notices this time, though, is Nino, who ends up coming in between the two, squeezing in until Sho is forced to move away.

It looks like Nino’s pushing Sho off Aiba, actually.

It makes Jun think back to all the times when Sho is close to Aiba, and the way Nino sometimes steps back, or rolls his eyes, or says something sharp. It makes Jun think back to the photo shoot, and he realizes that by putting him next to Sho, Nino’s putting him in between Sho and Aiba.

He switches off the television, and stalks out to the studio, where Nino’s telling a joke to one of the staff.

  
“Nino,” he calls.

Nino dismisses the staff, and walks up to him. “Yeah?”

“Stop throwing me at Sho whenever he gets too close to Aiba.”

Nino smirks. Jun hates that expression of Nino’s the most. “Why, does it bother you? I mean, everyone already knows that you and Sho are –“

“For the last time,” Jun says, steadily but loudly, “I am not, and never will be, in love with Sho-kun.”

Nino’s smirk doesn’t disappear, and Jun’s eyes widen as he looks around him in panic. There are only a few staff members left, and they’re all staring at him. Even worse -  _Sho_  had been on the phone in a corner, and now has the phone away from his ear, looking at him in confusion.

“I hate you,” Jun mutters.

Nino laughs.

 **Six**.

It’s after shooting for three guest appearances in a row and even though he has plans to go out that night with Shun, he thinks that he’d rather go home, he’s so tired. He heads to the door, one hand reaching for his phone to cancel with Shun, when his other hand, stretched towards the doorknob, is clasped by Nino’s instead, and he’s pulled back in.

“What?” he asks, irritated. “I have plans. I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re not,” Nino tells him. “Sit.”

“I really do have plans, Nino. Shun –“

“-already knows that you’re not meeting him today.”

“What? Why?” Even though he had been about to cancel on Shun anyway, it incensed him that Nino had done it first without checking with him.

Nino glowers at him; if Jun’s tired, he figures that Nino must be dead on his feet. After all, Nino’s currently the busiest of them all. He doubts that Nino has the patience to deal with much at the moment, and he briefly plays with the idea of irritating Nino enough to make Nino kick him out of the greenroom himself. 

Unfortunately, he forgets that Nino sometimes reads minds. There really isn’t any other explanation. “Don’t even start on me, MatsuJun. Just sit tight and wait.”

He opens his mouth to ask what he’s waiting for, but the look Nino gives him makes him bite back his words. He doesn’t have to wait long, anyway, because soon enough a very loud Aiba and Sho burst into the room, Sho carrying a lit birthday cake, and Aiba blowing on some noise makers, pausing every now and then to speak.

“Happy happy happy birthday, MatsuJun!” Aiba declares, just as Ohno strolls in behind them. The eldest carries nothing with him, but offers Jun a sweet smile that gives him warm fuzzy feelings inside, the kind he wishes he could foist off on Nino sometimes so that Nino wouldn’t be so… thorny.

“What’s this all about?” he manages to say, although his voice comes out in a funny sort of croak.

“Silly MatsuJun,” Aiba says fondly. “It’s your birthday celebration, of course!” 

He knows it’s his birthday celebration. He could deduce from everything that’s going on that it’s his birthday celebration. What he doesn’t quite get is why they’re celebrating his birthday a few days before the fact.

“It’s more of a surprise if it’s unexpected,” Sho explains. “Plus, this is the only time that all of us have some time to spare, together, in our schedules.” 

He looks at the cake. One of the strawberries is missing (Aiba, he thinks) and the decoration is wobbly, but original (Ohno? He wonders). Nino is telling him to hurry and blow the candles already, because the cake’s really expensive and had put a hole in Nino’s wallet, but Sho interrupts and reminds Nino that Aiba had ended up paying for the whole thing, to which Nino huffs and says celebrating Jun’s birthday had been his idea so he should get the credit for it anyway. At this point Jun tunes out, and Ohno saves the day by starting to sing the birthday song, and Aiba joins in, then Nino and Sho, and Jun’s smile is miles wide when they’re done and he’s blowing at the candles.

He’s in the best goddamned band  _ever_ , he thinks.


End file.
